Jewish Mass Graves Looted in Poland by Criminals Seeking Valuables

Police authorities today launched a campaign to put an end to looting of mass graves of Jews in the areas of Treblinka, Majdanek, Sobibor and Trawniki where Nazi extermination camps formerly existed.

Large sections of the graves have been dug up by criminals in search of valuables. The excavations are carried on with the help of pneumatic drills and mechanically operated sieves. Even human ashes are being sifted in an attempt to find gold teeth, or rings.

Jan Jakubik, an estate owner near Treblinka, was sentenced this week to 18 months hard labor, after it was established that he had hired a large number of people, including children, to dig up mass graves at Treblinka. His activities were discovered by the police as a result of a raid on jewelry shops in Warsaw where large quantities of gold teeth, rings, ear rings and other trinkets were discovered. An investigation established that Jakubik was one of the persons who sold much of this loot to the Jewelry stores.